As the 108th session of Congress unfolds, the National
Public Lands Grazing Campaign is preparing to announce congressional co-sponsors
of legislation that would pay ranchers to remove their cattle from public lands.

In the meantime, several congressional leaders have already
mulled the proposal and voiced their support.

At a conference organized last spring by the Idaho Conservation
League, U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) called the buyout a "win-win"
proposal for conservationists and ranchers.

"If we get together and collaborate, we can get results
that are higher for the environment and higher for the economy ... and everybody
wins," Crapo said.

The National Public Lands Grazing Campaign is a progressive
plan to end abusive livestock grazing on America¹s public lands. Part and
parcel of the campaign is a proposal to adopt through federal legislation a
voluntary buyout program that would compensate public lands ranchers in exchange
for their federal livestock grazing leases.

The proposal was introduced to 26,000 public lands ranchers
in April 2002. It is endorsed by more than 120 conservation groups, including
the Sierra Club.

"The Sierra Club considers the voluntary livestock
grazing permit retirement legislation a great opportunity for Congress to help
ranchers and the land," said Wayne Hoskisson, chairman of the club¹s
national grazing committee. "This is a simple step which allows struggling
ranchers a chance to get out of public lands grazing without horrendous economic
consequences.

"At the same time, some of the most marginally productive
rangelands will be given the chance once again to have natural processes regulate
the web of life in these truly beautiful places."

In September, the buyout plan went to Washington, D.C.
There, campaign staff and other progressive conservationists from the West assessed
with members of Congress the damage done by public lands ranching and discussed
an egalitarian solution: a generous, voluntary federal grazing permit buyout.

While the voluntary buyout campaign advances at the federal
level, advocates are also allying with permittees in various states to develop
site-specific buyouts.

In Arizona, a coalition of public lands ranchers and the
Center for Biological Diversity, one of six campaign steering committee groups,
has formed the Arizona Grazing Permit Buyout Campaign. The coalition has also
been to Washington, D.C., to educate and work with congressional leaders.

In New Mexico, Forest Guardians and a core group of 15
public lands grazing permittees are collaborating on a voluntary buyout campaign.
They plan to present the program to members of the New Mexico congressional
delegation.

Western Watersheds Project and the Committee for the High
Desert in Idaho have circulated a letter about voluntary, site-specific buyouts
to permittees in Owyhee County.

The Oregon Natural Desert Association in Oregon is working
with a grazing permittee to attach a provision to the proposed Badlands Wilderness
bill. Under the proviso, permittees would receive compensation from a third
party for permanent retirement of grazing allotments inside the wilderness boundary.

The national campaign has received calls from several
permittees in western Colorado who are interested in permit buyout. The campaign
will also pursue an opportunity to retire the last remaining grazing permit
in Death Valley National Park.

Meanwhile, the BLM in Utah recently decided in favor of
the Grand Canyon Trust in its campaign to purchase grazing permits on a "willing
buyer, willing seller" basis from ranchers near Grand Staircase-Escalante
National Monument. To date, the trust has paid more than $1.5 million to monument-area
ranchers in exchange for their grazing permits.

Domestic livestock graze more than 400,000 square miles
of federal public lands. In the West, one cow and calf need an average of nearly
14 acres per month to feed themselves on arid public lands. In the East, the
same cow-calf pair requires one-sixth of an acre of average private farmland
for forage.

Federal public lands produce only 2 percent of the nation¹s
total livestock feed and beef. Contributions from public lands grazing to state
and local economies are minuscule.

The National Public Lands Grazing Campaign initiative
would effectively retire a federal welfare program that costs American taxpayers
more than $500 million annually to subsidize public lands ranching operations.

The buyout program would cost $2.9 billion but save between
$5.7 billion and $9.9 billion over the long term.

Moreover, adoption of the voluntary buyout would diminish
decades of environmental destruction caused by livestock grazing. As a former
public lands rancher in Idaho recently allowed, "An awful lot of demands
have been put on our public lands, and grazing might be the biggest. It¹s
time we gave these lands some consideration."

Cash-strapped ranchers deserve consideration as well.
While ranching is a cherished lifestyle for many federal grazing permittees,
most heirs to the operation don¹t want or can¹t afford to continue
the tradition.

A public lands rancher who runs 3,000-plus head of cattle
in southern Utah believes the voluntary buyout is "a humane way of taking
care of a tough situation." He added that "most people I know in this
business would relish getting out if they could do it with dignity and some
cash in hand."

As the cost of ranching continues to increase, the capital
value of federal grazing permits continues to decline. The campaign proposal
would pay federal permittees four times market value to relinquish their grazing
permits.

Under the plan, a permittee with 300 cow-calf pairs that
graze public lands for five months of the year would receive $262,000.

The federal buyout program is a safety net for public
lands ranchers and an environmental imperative in the arid West. It would stanch
the economic bleeding, allowing ranchers to recapitalize investments otherwise
stranded in grazing permits.

And it would heal the land. It is a rare event in the
American socio-political arena: a campaign that produces no losers.